


you're not evil

by sxftmelody



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxftmelody/pseuds/sxftmelody
Summary: Jinsoul thinks she's evil.Jungeun thinks differently.





	you're not evil

**Author's Note:**

> a rewrite of a fic that i wrote for another fandom. i realized this au would seriously fit lipsoul so i made it a thing.

When Jungeun wakes up, she’s completely naked. She knows this because she feels the wind against her bare skin and it makes her shiver. Her throat is dry and her eyes sting when she tries to open them.  _ Damn salt water. _

 

Her eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness around her but when she realizes where she is, panic starts to set in. She’s in a  **cave** .

 

_ Why the  _ **_fuck_ ** _ is she in a cave? _

 

She sits up before immediately crying out at the sharp pain that ripples through her left side, enough to spring tears to her eyes. Jungeun takes one deep breath before letting out many short ones. 

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she curses, blinking away the tears in her eyes and looking around the cave. 

 

There are multiple paths to take to get out (or to get deeper into the cave) and they all look nearly identical. Jungeun’s head is pounding as she looks around, scared as hell.

 

She’s in the middle of cursing under her breath and panicking when something causes her to stop immediately.

 

She hears something.

 

Pitter-patter of feet. 

 

Jungeun grits her teeth and goes to stand up, doing so very slowly, terrified of what she might encounter. She leans on one side of the wall and listens to the footsteps getting closer and closer, her heartbeat racing faster than it's ever been.

 

She does not expect to see a beautiful blonde girl, as naked as Jungeun is, entering the cave. Her skin, as seemingly flawless and smooth as it is, has blotches of blue scattered on it; on her upper thighs, her waist, her left forearm. Jungeun swears they look like scales, but she’s also pretty sure she’s dead and that this is just a dream—so she’ll just chalk it down to some sort of skin condition.

 

“Who are you?” Jungeun asks with as much as a stern tone as she can muster, trying to ignore the pain in her side, “Where are my clothes? What did you do to me?”

 

The blonde just blinks before turning around and walking away.

 

“Hey, hey!” Jungeun calls out, following the girl. 

 

The girl walks with awkward feet, much like a child who’s not gotten used to walking on two feet, and yet Jungeun still struggles to keep up with her.

 

“What are you doing? Hey! Say something!” Jungeun keeps on trying to talk to the girl as they navigate through the cave. The shouting makes Jungeun’s ribs hurt even more but Jungeun just wants to figure out what the hell is going on.

 

The last thing Jungeun remembers is being on a yacht party… and then there was a storm.

 

Suddenly, the mysterious girl stops, and Jungeun collides into her, gasping. The girl turns around and steadies her with strong hands on Jungeun’s shoulders. 

 

“Clothes,” the girl says tentatively before looking at something behind her.

 

Jungeun follows the girl’s vision and, sure enough, her clothes are on the ground in a pile. 

 

“Why did you take my clothes off?” Jungeun questions, limping past the girl. She uses her foot to kick up her clothes so she doesn’t have to bend down. 

 

Once she’s all clothed, she turns and stares at the blonde, who is looking at her with a tilted head. “And where are  **your** clothes?”

 

“You were cold,” the girl says. At least she speaks the same language as Jungeun.

 

“And your clothes?” Jungeun repeats, gesturing to the girl’s body without letting her eyes travel, too.

 

“Do not need,”

 

Jungeun opens her mouth to say something, but the girl just turns on her heel and heads off somewhere else.

 

“H—Hey! Where are you go— _ Dammit _ ,” Jungeun hisses, rushing to follow the girl. Jungeun gives up trying to talk to her and opts to just follow wherever she’s going.

 

As soon as Jungeun smells the salty air, she knows they’re coming to an exit.

 

The girl stops again, turns, and blinks.

 

“What’s your name?” Jungeun tries.

 

“Bad,”

 

“What?” Jungeun furrows her eyebrows, “Bad? Your name is bad?”

 

“I am bad,” the blonde shakes her head, pointing to herself, “bad.”

 

“Bad…” Jungeun repeats under her breath, “you’re bad?”

 

“E… Evil,” the girl says.

 

“You’re evil,” Jungeun repeats again. The blonde nods and points to the exit, “You… go.”

 

Jungeun is so confused—why does this girl think she’s evil when she just saved Jungeun’s life?. Despite her confusion, Jungeun finds herself stumbling towards the exit. She needs to get back to her friends. They probably think she’s dead.

 

Just before Jungeun steps out onto the warm sand, she turns around to get another look at the blonde girl who saved her life—but no one’s there.

 

//

 

It’s a miracle, people say, that Jungeun had survived that night. When the storm had snuck up on them out of nowhere and caused mass chaos, no one thought there’d be any survivors. 

 

In fact, Jungeun’s the only survivor.

 

“Fuck, Jungeun, we were  **so** worried,” Sooyoung says as she holds tightly onto Jungeun’s left hand (Jiwoo’s holding onto her right hand), “we thought…”

 

The girl trails off as Jungeun feels the holds on her hands tighten. She squeezes her friends’ hands and placed a smile on her lips.

 

“I’m okay, though,” Jungeun says, “I’m just happy that you two were off on a date together instead of with me. I wouldn’t know what I would’ve done if you two were there and…”

 

“Oh, Jungeun!” Jiwoo cries out, flinging herself onto the girl in the hospital bed without putting weight on her injury. Jungeun laughs with tears in her eyes as she hugs the smaller girl back.

 

//

 

The suddenness of the storm sparked an abundance of theories. What could have made the storm seem so invisible until last minute? There were mentions of magic, of government involvement, all sorts of things that seem so out-of-this-world that Jungeun can’t help but roll her eyes at them. However, one theory had particularly stuck out to Jungeun; mermaids. 

 

At first, Jungeun thought the idea was absolutely ridiculous. 2018 and people are theorizing that mermaids were the cause of the storm? What the hell?

 

Jungeun’s remembers reading about mermaids (sirens, more like it) in school a long time ago; the legends and myths about how they’d lure in unsuspecting fishermen with their beautiful singing before murdering them in cold blood. Jungeun also just thought that stories were exactly that;  **just** stories.

 

But then, Jungeun remembers a certain blonde girl that had saved her life, and the idea of mermaids actually existing doesn’t seem  **that** far-fetched.

 

She’d been released from the hospital and put on bed rest when she sees the warnings of mermaids in the waters and then  **rewards** for the dead bodies of the creatures. Seeing people genuinely wanting to go  **hunting for mermaids** , makes Jungeun’s stomach drop and she doesn’t think much before she hurries out of her front door.

  
  


//

 

The moon is out once Jungeun reaches the cave, and she barely manages to catch the blonde, who’s already on her way to the water.

 

“No! Wait!” Jungeun’s jog becomes a sprint as she hurries to stop the girl.

 

The blonde whips her head around, surprised at the noise. Jungeun runs up to her and stands between her and the ocean.

 

“You can’t go in the water right now,” Jungeun says, trying to regain her breath. The blonde stares down with confused curiosity. “It’s not safe.”

 

“Why?” the blonde asks.

 

“People are…” Jungeun takes another deep breath, “ _ Mermaids _ .”

 

The word makes the girl’s eyes go wide.

 

“You’re a mermaid, right?”

 

“No,” the girl shakes her head, trying to get past Jungeun, “No.”

 

“It’s—It’s okay,” Jungeun rushes out, stepping in front of the girl again, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

 

The roar of a car engine in the distance makes both girls gasp. Jungeun looks around warily, before looking back at the blonde.

 

“Can we go back inside the cave?” Jungeun asks, pointing to the cave. The blonde nods shakily.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“My name is Jungeun,” Jungeun starts off as soon as they’re settled in the cave. They’re sat across from each other. Jungeun had given the mermaid the flannel tied around her waist (and had to help her put it on, too). “What’s your name?”

 

“Bad,”

 

“No,” Jungeun shakes her head, “Not ‘bad’. Your  _ name _ , what’s your  _ name _ ?”

 

The girl looks confused for a moment, like she’s trying to remember, before she raises her eyebrows. It’s like a lightbulb had clicked. 

 

“Jinsoul.”

 

“Jinsoul,” Jungeun repeats softly, “Okay, okay. You are a mermaid, right, Jinsoul?”

 

There’s a moment of hesitation, but Jungeun remains patient.

 

“I’m not here to hurt you,”

 

Jinsoul’s eyes flicker between Jungeun’s before she nods, “Mermaid.”

 

“Jesus,” Jungeun lets out a heavy breath, moving back in awe, “the stories are true, then.”

 

“ _ Stories _ ,” Jinsoul says, “I am evil.”

 

“The stories… Yeah, yeah, they said you were evil—that your people are evil,” Jungeun says honestly, “but  _ you’re _ not. Jinsoul, you’re not evil.”

 

The words take a second to register in Jinsoul’s mind and then she looks completely puzzled—like even the concept of her not being evil is more confusing than rocket science. 

 

“You saved me,” Jungeun continues, trying to get through to Jinsoul, “that’s  _ not _ evil.”

 

“But… I am,”

 

“You’re not, Jinsoul,” Jungeun repeats, “Look, you can’t go into the water tonight, okay? There are people. Bad people— _ evil _ people—trying to hunt for your people.”

 

“Hunt?”

 

“They’re trying to kill you, Jinsoul,”

 

Jinsoul sits up a little straighter, “Then… I kill them first.”

 

“Amazing plan,” Jungeun says sarcastically—which Jinsoul doesn’t register as she nods along—and Jungeun shakes her head, “No, no—it’s a  _ bad _ plan.”

 

“But you said—”

 

“It’s a  _ bad _ plan,” Jungeun emphasizes, “it’s called sarcasm, it’s this thing where— _ nevermind _ —there are too many of them. You could never take them on.”

 

“Humans…” Jinsoul stares deeply into Jungeun’s eyes, Jungeun swears her eyes glow a dark shade of blue, “evil.”

 

Jungeun smiles, glad that she got the warning through, “I agree.”

 

“You… are not,” a cold hand comes up to touch Jungeun’s cheek. 

 

Jungeun almost flinches away but manages to stay still as the mermaid starts examining her features. Jungeun gulps as Jinsoul’s eyes quite literally scan every inch of her face. A thumb moves across her cheek.

 

“I have to go,” Jungeun whispers, feeling a little uneasy at the intensity of Jinsoul’s gaze. Maybe it’s the nerves of having just discovered a species she’s thought of as a complete myth, but Jungeun’s feeling a little on edge.

 

“Go where?” Jinsoul asks.

 

“Back home,” Jungeun answers, “my friends are probably wondering where I am.”

 

“Okay,” Jinsoul says, not moving her hand away from Jungeun’s cheek, “You go.”

 

“Okay,” Jungeun murmurs, standing up, “you’ll stay here tonight? You won’t go into the water?”

 

Jinsoul nods, “I stay.”

 

“Good,” Jungeun breathes out a sigh of relief, “Goodbye, Jinsoul.”

 

She heads towards the exit of the cave when she hears a voice call out to her.

 

“Jungeun,” 

 

“Yeah?” she turns around.

 

Jinsoul’s standing there, Jungeun’s oversized flannel hanging low on one side of Jinsoul’s shoulder and reaching down to her upper thighs. She brings a hand up to her chest, patting it twice, “Not evil.”

 

Jungeun feels a warmth welling up in her stomach as she smiles, nodding her head, “You’re not evil, Jinsoul.”

 

And there’s the tiniest curl of Jinsoul’s lips—the most emotion Jungeun’s seen from the girl so far—that makes Jungeun’s own smile widen. 

 

She lowers her head and exits the cave, her heart feeling light.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


//

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Jinsoul had been swimming, trying to find food, when she spots the boat. At first she only sees the bottom of a boat rocking against the violent waves, and then there are bodies in the water, too. It’s only one, then two, but then, after a particularly violent wave, whole groups of bodies are flung into the water.

 

The water is turning red with blood as people are cut by hidden underwater rocks and Jinsoul swims closer, trying to see what’s happening. Most of the bodies in the water are struggling, trying to get to the surface. Jinsoul gives a few of them taps on the bottom with the flat of her tail, helping them up. Then, one body, visibly smaller than the other ones, crashes right besides Jinsoul.

 

It’s a girl.

 

She isn’t struggling like the other people, she’s just… floating— **drowning** , more like it.

 

Jinsoul wraps her arms around the girl’s waist and begins to swim away from the scene.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Jinsoul carries the girl’s small body into the cave easily. She sets her down gently, listening to her heartbeat. The girl’s shivering and Jinsoul looks at the soaked clothes that are creating a puddle beneath the girl.

 

She starts to unbutton the girl’s shirt and soon enough, the girl is naked.

 

Still, she is shivering, and Jinsoul isn’t sure what to do. A breeze from the beach reaches the cave and the girl’s body twitches. Jinsoul moves forward to pick her up again and brings her further into the cave, away from the wind and any other potential danger.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Jinsoul finds the girl fascinating. Jungeun is her name. When Jungeun comes to warn Jinsoul about the dangers of the water, Jinsoul feels a tingling in her toes. When Jungeun’s fingers button up the flannel she had slipped onto her, Jinsoul stares at her concentrated face. When Jungeun tells Jinsoul she isn’t evil, Jinsoul feels overwhelmed. For all her life she had been told she was evil—a monster that deserved to die—a  _ predator _ . And yet, Jungeun tells her differently.

  
  
  
  
  


Jungeun tells her the truth.

  
  
  



End file.
